“Look at you, MacKayla, all flushed and glowing, salivating over the idea of merging with the Book.” The gold flecks in his eyes begin to glitter again.
I’d know that look on any man’s face.
“So like Alina,” he murmurs, “yet so unlike her.”
It’s a difference he seems to appreciate. “What is it about you? Why will you be able to merge with it?” I demand. “Tell me!”
“Find the Book, MacKayla, and I will show you.”
When we finally locate the room with the Silver in it, it’s just as Darroc described: empty of furnishings, save a single mirror, five feet by ten.
The mirror appears to have been inserted seamlessly into whatever the walls are made of in the House.
But my mind’s not on the Silver at all. I’m still reeling from what Darroc told me.
Another piece of the puzzle that had been giving me fits clicks into place. I’d been perplexed by his determination to get the Book, when none of us knew how to touch it, move it, corner it, do a single damned thing with it, without getting taken over, turned evil, then killed, after being forced to kill everyone around us.
Along with wondering why Darroc hadn’t been more brutal, I’d wondered why he was hunting it when he’d never be able to use it, when even Barrons and I had been forced to admit that chasing the thing was pointless.
Yet Darroc had never relented. He’d kept his Unseelie scouring Dublin for it incessantly. The whole time I’d been stumbling in the dark, trying to figure out the four, and the five, and the prophecy, Darroc had been following a much easier path.
He knew a way to merge with the Sinsar Dubh—and control it!
There’s no question in my mind that Darroc’s telling the truth. I have no idea how or where he got this information, but he definitely knows how to use the Sinsar Dubh without being corrupted.
I need that knowledge!
I watch him through narrowed eyes. I’m no longer in a hurry to kill him. Fact is, I’d kill to protect the bastard at this point.
I mentally refine my mission. I don’t need the prophecy, stones, or Druids. I’ll never need to ally myself with V’lane in the future.
I need one thing: to uncover Darroc’s secret.
Once I have it, I can corner the Book myself. I don’t have any problems getting near it. It likes to play with me.
My hands tremble with excitement that’s difficult to contain. Trying to fulfill the absurd conditions of the prophecy would have taken forever. My new plan could be achieved in a matter of days, bringing my grief to a swift end.
“Why did you bring Unseelie through the dolmen in the warehouse at LaRuhe when you had a Silver you could have used instead?” I employ small questions to lull him. Get him off guard. Then I’ll sneak a big one in. Like most men-who-would-be-king, he likes to hear himself talk.
“Low-caste Unseelie are distracted by anything upon which they might feed. I needed a short passage, void of life, through which to herd them. I would never have gotten them out of this world and into yours. Besides, many of them would not have fit through such a small opening.”
I remember the horde of Unseelie—some wispy and diminutive, others fleshy and enormous—that had poured through the giant dolmen the night I’d caught my first glimpse of the crimson-robed Lord Master and realized, much to my horror, that he was my sister’s boyfriend. The night that Mallucé had nearly killed me and would have, if Barrons hadn’t miraculously appeared and saved me. I try to evict the memory, but it’s too late.
I’m in the warehouse, trapped between Darroc and Mallucé …
Barrons drops down next to me, long black coat fluttering.
Now that was just stupid, Ms. Lane, he says, with that mocking smile of his. They would have figured out who you were soon enough.
We battle Darroc and his minions. Mallucé injures me badly. Barrons carries me back to his bookstore, where he heals me. It’s the first time he ever kisses me. Like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
Once more he saved me—and what did I do when he needed me?
Killed him.
The silent scream is back, welling up inside me. Biting it down takes all the strength I possess.
I stumble.
Darroc catches my arm and steadies me.
I shake him off. “I’m fine. Just hungry.” I’m not. My body has shut down. “Let’s get out of here.” I step into the Silver. I expect to meet resistance, because I always have in the past when entering a Silver, so I duck my head and push forward a little. The silvery surface is thick, gluey.
I explode out the other side into a headlong sprawl. I scramble to my feet and whirl on him, as he glides from the mirror with smooth grace. “What did you do? Push me?”
“I did no such thing. Perhaps it is the Silver’s way of saying ‘good riddance’ to the stones,” he mocks.
I’d not considered the effect they might have. Tucked away in the rune-covered leather pouch in my backpack, I’d forgotten them. My sidhe-senses don’t seem to work in the Silvers. I don’t feel their cold, dark fire in the pit of my brain.
He smirks. “Or perhaps it’s saying good riddance to you, MacKayla. Give them to me. I will carry them through the next Silver and we will see what happens to you then.”
The next Silver? Only then do I realize we’re not back in Dublin but in another white room which has ten mirrors hanging on the wall. He’s made it difficult for anyone to follow him. I wonder where the other nine go.
“As if that’s going to happen,” I mutter. I adjust my backpack and dust myself off.
“You do not wish to know. Are you human or are you stone?” he goads. “If I carry them, and the mirror expels you with such force again, we’ll have our answer.”
I’m not a stone. “Just tell me which mirror goes to Dublin.”
“Fourth from the left.”
I push in, but warily this time, in no mood for another fall. This Silver is strange. It takes me into a long tunnel where I move through one brick wall after the next, as if he has stacked Tabh’rs, like the one in Christian’s desert that was inside a cactus, only these are concealed in brick walls.
But where?
I catch a blurred glimpse of a street at night through the next Silver and am buffeted by a chilly breeze. Then I’m blasted so hard across a cobbled alley into a brick wall that it stuns me. This one is solid and impenetrable.
I’d know my city blindfolded. We’re back in Dublin. I hug the wall, determined to stay standing. I’ve been on my ass enough today.
I might be shaky on my feet—but at least I’m on them when my sidhe-seer senses kick in with a vengeance, as if awakening after a long, resented sleep enforced by being in the Silvers. Alien energy slams into my brain: The city is teeming with Fae.
Objects of Power and Fae used to make me feel sick to my stomach, but continued exposure has changed me. Their presence no longer incapacitates me. Now I get a dark, intense adrenaline rush from them. I’m shaky enough already from lack of food and sleep. I don’t care where the Unseelie are, and I’m not about to start looking for the Book. I close my eyes and concentrate on turning down my “volume” until it goes silent.
Then Darroc’s arms are around me, pulling me to him, holding me up. For a moment, I forget who I am, what I feel, what I’ve lost, and know only that strong arms support me.
I smell Dublin.
I’m in a man’s arms.
He turns me around, drops his head to mine, holds me like he’s sheltering me, and for a moment I pretend he’s Barrons.
He presses his lips to my ear. “You said we were friends, MacKayla,” he murmurs, “yet I see none of that in your eyes. If you give yourself to me, completely give yourself, I will not ever—how did you say it?—let you die on my watch. I know you are angry about your sister, but together we could change that … or not, if you wish. You have attachments to your world, but could you not see a place for yourself in mine? You are even less like other humans than Alina. You do not belong here. You never did. You were meant for more.” His melodious voice deepens seductively. “Do you not feel it? Have you not always felt it? You are … larger than others of your kind. Open your eyes. Take a good look around. Are these petty, breeding, warring humans worth fighting for? Dying for? Or would you dare to taste forever? Eternity. Absolute freedom. Walk among others that are also larger than a single mortal life.”
His hands cup my head, cradle my face. His lips move against my ear. His breath is harsh, shallow, and fast, and I feel the hard press of him against my thigh. My own breath quickens.
I pretend again that he is Barrons and suddenly he feels like Barrons, and I’m fighting to keep my head clear. Images flash through my mind, those long, incredible hours spent in a sex-drenched bed.
I smell Barrons on my skin, taste him on my lips. I remember. I will never forget. The memories are so vivid. I swear I could reach out and touch those crimson silk sheets.
He sprawls on the bed, a dark tattooed mountain of man, arms folded behind his head, watching me as I dance naked.
Manfred Mann plays an old Bruce Springsteen cover on my iPod: I came for you, for you, I came for you …
He did. And I killed him.
I would give my right arm to be back there, for just one day. Live it again. Touch him again. Hear those sounds he makes. Smile at him. Be tender. Not be afraid to be tender. Life is so fragile, exquisite, and short. Why do I keep realizing that too late?
The brand on the back of my skull burns, but I can’t tell if it’s Darroc’s mark that scalds my scalp or Barrons’ brand that burns me because Darroc is touching it.